do you? why not add your miracles too?

Monthly Archives: July 2010

For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. Matthew 6:32

In preparation to sell our house, we recently redecorated my daughter’s bathroom – taking it from preteen flowers and butterflies to a more sophisticated powder-room effect, in shades of brown and teal. The project was accomplished in short order, with one holdout – bathroom rugs. The whole project cost more than it was supposed to (gasp!) and I was now determined not to pay any more for rugs than was absolutely necessary. Thus began a fruitless search through garage sales, resale shops, eBay and Amazon, etc., for the right rugs at the right price. I finally sprung for one to put in front of the shower, as I was getting tired of seeing a towel on the floor. Now we just needed one for in front of the toilet, but the search was starting to become absurdly elongated.

One evening we were at TJ Max, shopping for camp clothes for Gwen. While she was trying things on, I wandered through house wares. When she joined me, I said, “Let’s just take a quick look to see if there’s a rug for in front of your toilet.” There was about a 10-foot section of shelf devoted to bath rugs. We stood back and looked for the right color – dark chocolate. Found it, but it came only in a set of two rugs which cost more than I wanted to pay. So I stuffed it back in the shelf, stood back again, surveyed once more for the right color and found nothing.

“Oh well, the search continues,” I said, as I headed down the isle and rounded the corner.

Just as Gwen was about to round the corner behind me, something hit the floor. She looked back and said, “Mom, look at this.” I came back around the corner to see her holding the perfect dark chocolate brown rug, perfect size, with a design that coordinates perfectly with the rest of the bathroom. She said, “This just fell on the floor.”

Where had it come from? If a rug had been precariously dangling just seconds away from hitting the floor, wouldn’t we have seen it as we stood back a second time, looking for just that color? And what about the racket it made as it hit the floor? It had to have fallen from one of the upper shelves. We looked at the shelves and all the rugs were neatly folded and stacked. It was as if our guardian angel pulled the rug out from its hiding place and plopped it on the floor, as if to say, “Here! I found what you’re looking for.”

The price? $7.99 – very much to my liking.

Gwen and I rejoiced as we wondered about the perfect rug miraculously plopping to the floor in just the precise moment we would have noticed it.

As I reflected on this unique provision, two things happened: First, I felt very safe. If God cares enough to use His divine intervention to provide the perfect rug to go in front of a toilet in the smallest bathroom in our house, He surely cares about whether the house sells. God is in the details and that day showed His unbounded love toward us in the form of a carpet.

The second thing that happened was that my mind began to explore alternate explanations. I dismissed coincidence as a possibility, as I could clearly remember standing back and surveying the shelf for another dark brown rug. I feel certain I would have seen that rug – just seconds away from falling off the shelf. Instead, another interesting theory emerged: maybe it was a magic carpet. Maybe there’s something special about the rug itself.

I’m happy to report that this was a fleeting thought and I found it not only ridiculous, but ridiculously funny. And yet, it occurred to me! Isn’t this temptation to glorify the creation over the Creator what God is addressing in the second commandment, “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything…”? That commandment is one we often dismiss as being mindlessly easy to obey. In this age of Christian enlightenment, we’re way past worshipping golden calves, right? It’s just plain silly these days to think that inanimate objects, like fortune cookies, Magic 8 balls, lottery tickets, lucky underwear or heads-up pennies, have any power. (Ehem!)

The magic in that carpet is that it had the privilege of being used by the Creator of the Universe to show His love toward me and my daughter. I hope we remember that each time it warms our feet as we sit on the potty.